Army Home Visitors’ Implementation of Military Family Violence Prevention Programming in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Army New Parent Support Program (Army NPSP) provides home visitation services that promote positive parenting strategies and aims to prevent family violence for expectantmilitary parents and military families with children from birth to age 3. Since the onset of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Army NPSP services have rapidly adapted to a telehealthmodel tofit with the suggested practices of physical distancing. Employing a grounded theory approach, nine virtual focus groups with 30 Army NPSP home visitors across eight installations were conducted to examine howthis rapid shift has impacted their services, practice, and professional role. The present study identified two overarching themes: (1) working with families (e.g., continued engagement with families, increased communication, shifting family needs) and (2) adjusting to telework (e.g., technology, professional collaboration and communication, professional growth). Findings from these focus groups indicated that home visitors were actively engaged with their clients and experienced both challenges and benefits of telehealth.While the rapid transition was a big change, and home visitors missed the face-to-face interactions, they expressed that they were adapting and improving their virtual service delivery with time.